by Brad Warner

The other day I went to a Meetup.com group for writers in Philadelphia. While introducing myself I mentioned that I used to write science fiction novels (note that the best of these is now available from Amazon!) but now write about Zen. One of the other writers said, “You could write a science fiction novel about a Zen monk in outer space!” I was kind of like, wow, I never thought of that!

I’m still not sure if it’s a good idea or not. A long time ago I read James Blish’s book A Case of Conscience, about a Jesuit monk living on another planet and another novel called The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, also about a Jesuit monk who travels to another world. They were both really good and had something important to say, which probably couldn’t have been conveyed in non-fiction as well as it could in fiction. I wondered if maybe I could do that sort of thing too.

So I started poking around the Intewebs to see if it had been done before. When I searched “Zen monk in space” one of the first things that came up was this very interesting article. It’s about astronauts who have experiences that sound a bit like so-called kensho or satori moments (aka “enlightenment experiences”) while looking back upon the Earth from far, far away.

It wasn’t that bit which really stood out for me, although it is interesting. What struck me most was an observation by Edgar Mitchell, an Apollo 14 astronaut who experienced one of those epiphanies. It wasn’t an observation about the epiphany itself, but about something else. Here’s what he said:

“Four hundred years ago. the philosopher Rene Descartes came to the conclusion that physicality and spirituality, or mind and body belonged to different realms of reality that didn’t interact. Now, that served the purpose to get the Inquisition off the backs of the intellectuals so they could disagree on material things with the church without the fear of being burned at the stake. So that ended that, but it did cause, for four hundred years, science to consider consciousness and mind a subject for philosophy and religion and not a subject for science.”

Amazing. I had never thought about that.

Ever since I first encountered the famous line in the Heart Sutra “form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” I had thought that Descartes and his followers – basically all of us in the West – had made a huge mistake. We’d separated body and mind! What fools we were!

I never made the connection as to how Descartes’ dualism functioned socially. As Mitchell said, it got the Inquisition off the backs of the intellectuals and scientists. It allowed a way for science to exist and progress without threatening the Church.

Of course not every church felt unthreatened, as the Bill Nye Vs. Ken Ham debate on evolution and the continuing problems with teaching evolution in American schools points out. But these are relatively minor problems by comparison. Nobody’s getting broken on the wheel for teaching evolution in these post-Cartesean times, even way down in Mississippi.

Following the wide acceptance of Descartes’ dualistic ideas, scientists were able to work without fear of being horribly killed. This may have been what allowed the Western societies who accepted dualism to progress scientifically far beyond societies who did not. The Muslims, and even the Hindus and Buddhists never had their own Descartes.

It’s true the Hindus and Buddhists feared science less than the Christians and Muslims. But perhaps the fact that Europeans were able to advance far beyond them in the areas of material scientific research owes something to the Western notions of dualism which were rejected by Buddhists and many Hindus. I am not proposing this is the sole factor. But I think it’s an important one.

I’m not a big reader of philosophy. So perhaps what I’m saying here is nothing new. But I can say for certain that it’s not an idea that’s widely discussed in the popular literature about religion that I do sometimes read. Maybe it should be, because it explains a lot!

And so I offer that up to you fine folks for consideration today.

Maybe I’ll write that science fiction book.

* * *

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71 Responses

The aliens send a message, and nobody can understand it, until some random Zen Buddhist says, “Oh! They are saying ‘form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” So when the expedition leaves to visit the nice aliens, they send a Zen priest along as a translator.

What about Star Wars? It seems like the Jedi are more or less saying Zen/Taoist stuff. Just replace Chi with Force.
As for Dualism vs Non Dualism let me assure you we hindus may read about it but none of us gets it. We just worship all those gods and goddesses hoping some good will happen.

It might be interesting of someone who actually knew something about Buddhism wrote about it, though. Lucas speculated a lot about what Buddhism might be. So did Gene Roddenberry when he created Mr. Spock in Star Trek.

Interesting commentary. I’ve sometimes thought that the “form is emptiness part” is easier than “emptiness is form” – we’re good at seeing beyond form but we don’t like the idea that form (and all the dualistic stuff that comes with it) has its uses.

FYI that the astronaut you mention was in fact Edgar Mitchell, not Edgar Russell. Not sure you’ll like him across the board (he’s probably best known for his ESP experiments) but he’s a fascinating guy and it’s not surprising that he had something notable to say about Descartes. More detail here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Mitchell

“Sorry Mark but no…it’s not just that it stops and you’re there watching it. You fucking die. Literally. You won’t be there to enjoy your enlightenment…”

Use no pronouns, and no one will get hurt.

My experience was not enlightenment, just sounded like what you were describing, which for me would be the cessation of volition in inhalation and exhalation (the cessation of volitive activity affecting breath in the body). That cessation is just a freaky weird trick that I personally fell into from playing with hypnosis in high school, starving myself, and paying a lot of attention to the movement of breath. The difficulty for me was, that I then had to try to reconcile the life my society expected me to lead with a strange dualism regarding action.

“Zazen is action”, “seated meditation is not holding still”- funny, I don’t see anybody moving…

“Don’t stain your zazen by saying that you’ve progressed, feel better or have become more confident through zazen.”– that’s a bit harsh, Mr. Sawaki, but I do thank you.

“And tell me, since you want to leave the place where you are,where is it exactly you want to go?”

The Persians had tons of intellectuals after Islam spread to Persia/Iran (same thing). They include: Al Khwarizmi (without who, computers wouldn’t exist), Omar Khayyam, Avicenna, Rhazes, and etc. Before the spread of Islam, the Sassanian Zoroastrians were actually very corrupt and their persecution of Manichaeists, Persian Buddhists, and Christians prevented intellectual progress. Bahram I had Mani killed for example, and Buddhism (which began in Parthian times) was eradicated by Zoroastrian magi. It was better for Iran to be invaded by the Arabs due to the flourish of the Islamic Intellectual Period that was instilled into it.

There are still many intelligent Iranians such as Majid Samii (considered one of the best brain surgeons residing in Germany).

I don’t mean to be offensive, but I recommend reading a bit into Middle Eastern history by Wiking or something. Eurocentrism is not good.

Remember, when Europe was in its dark ages, Central Asia was very prosperous and extremely advanced.

Moreover, in the Safavid Empire, Tajiks sought to prove themselves with the “pen” whereas the Turks, who helped protect the empire, sought to prove themselves with the sword. A kind of rivalry emerged in the court around that time. In general, Persia was a center of great intellectual progress for much of history except now.

“The Muslims, and even the Hindus and Buddhists never had their own Descartes.”

It’s simple. The reason India does not have as many WELL-KNOWN intellectuals like Bhaskara II anymore is due to Western colonialism and imperialism. It’s more numerous than you think…. France to Vietnam, Britain to India, and the overthrow of democratically selected leader Mossadegh.

A lot of these past Western scientists were influenced from reading a wide array of literature including figures like Avicenna.

It’s also important to note a lot of “scientists” are not technically scientists, such as Louis Pasteur. He was pushed more by corporate interests and not so much for a yearning to “understand”.

I’m aware that Islamic societies were way ahead of Christian ones in terms of science for a very long time. Historians don’t really agree on what happened to change that. There are certainly a lot of factors.

I probably shouldn’t have said that about “they didn’t have their own Descartes.” I was just speculating. I was more interested in the idea that dualism, which many Western people interested in Eastern philosophies (including me) regard as a terrible philosophical mistake, actually may not have been a mistake. It was a practical solution to a real world problem.

The problem was that the church was very powerful. But science was very useful. If science was to progress, it had to make peace with the church. Dualism was the key to that.

There are certainly a lot of brilliant Islamic scientists. But you need more than brilliant scientists for science to progress. You need a widespread acceptance of science itself among people who are not very brilliant. I don’t think Europeans are any smarter than anyone else. That’s ridiculous. In fact, most Europeans and most Americans for that matter are not very smart at all. Most people do not live up to their full intellectual capacity. That’s a worldwide phenomenon.

Descartes was a brilliant individual in that he intuitively understood the problem and offered an acceptable solution that was widely embraced. That is a rare ability anywhere. It takes a confluence of circumstances that go well beyond what any individual is capable of.

The mindset that emerged out of this confluence in the West was not somehow “better.” But it allowed many problems to be solved. And it created a lot of other problems.

Like an EEG where there are frequent troughs and peaks. I think it is incorrect to view history as a progression towards more “understanding”. Rather, oscillates between periods of instability and stability. It seems whenever humans are stable, they utilize their rational faculties as in not to be swayed by dogma (ofc this sounds like common sense), but whenever anything threatens them with fear of losing the known, they fall back into making scapegoats and being generally violent. Vietnam was generally peaceful and very happy prior to war and commercialization by the French, and it reverted back into chaos. History is always in a flux and has its ups and downs. I do not think scientific progress grows in a linear fashion either (i.e., I side with Kuhn who argues each proceeding paradigm is no better or worse than the other – paradigms are tools to be utilized in order to achieve certain goals, not models-of-reality used to accurately define the world). What to me is more important is the rationality, humility, and so forth that corresponds with ages of enlightenment and reason, not the experimental data or theories that accompany them, when we sociologically analyze peaceful & impoverished societies.

I think because of the generally “shifting” and “flux” nature of reality, Zazen is a good practice to make people live more in the present and not get too comfortable thinking about the “greatness of the future” and the “intellectual achievements of mankind” or whatnot.

I was referring to specific cases where corporations push for certain results, as in the case of Tyrone Hayes and Syngenta, which continued using Atrazine even though unbiased results indicated its harmful impact.

I was simply mentioning how people should be careful when treating science like a “system of ideology”. It is actually more disparate than people think. I can’t talk more cause my laptop has almost run out of battery. I’ll be back on more later. For example, raw milk from pastured Jersey cows or goats is very good for you because of the beneficial bacteria that aids in digestion and it has more CLA content. As long as the cow is healthy it’s fine, but Pasteur was pushed to find a way to allow for the mass-production of milk from cows stuck up in barnes in unhealthy living conditions, and he also had to figure a way to make milk less perishable. As a consequence, pasteurization process was “discovered”, and it helped with transporting and mass-producing it at the cost of quality. Of course, the FDA is quick to call this “quackery”, and I suspect this is due to how much advertisement of pasteurized dairy there is in schools. I remember drinking Mayfield milk (which is known to be from unhealthy cows), and I recently read they plan to put aspartame in it, which has been correlated with neurodegenerative issues… Idk, there are so many layers to scientific research, such as getting funding, grants, publishing etc

I actually intern at a lab and I can contest to how many people misinterpret the scientific process.

“Intrinsic in christian doctrine is the separation between religion and state.”

It’s impossible to fully separate a state’s primary religion and state. It makes more sense to make the interpretations of the religion more “accepting” and “open to diversity”. You can get over a hundred different interpretations of the Bible or Koran. This is both a fatal flaw and a good thing. It’s better to have a predominately Sufi state or a predominately Gnostic Christian (one that reads the Gospels like Gospel of Thomas). I feel it’s impossible to fully separate implicit biases like religious beliefs from how one conducts foreign or domestic affairs. Also, there’s nothing in the Bible or any Christian text that says to attempt to separate one’s beliefs of God or Jesus from daily activities. I don’t know.

yeah…i don’t know much about it…but i thought that basically there as substance, and things of moral substance. it’s was like a play on words or something? idk…but they didn’t have emptiness…but then, emptiness is full of awareness. so that’s also a play on words no?

“It’s impossible to fully separate a state’s primary religion and state. It makes more sense to make the interpretations of the religion more “accepting” and “open to diversity”.
—————

It’s very much possible since (to my knowledge) illuminism which opened the way to the American Revolution and the French revolution that state FREEDOM of thoughts, religion and speach, separating religion and state.

AND it has been possible BECAUSE of the “Cesar/God” root concept from the gospel.

Now go look for something similar in the Koran.

It’s not a matter of “more accepting” it’s a matter of “mind your own business” on a global scale.

These are the principles, human beings being human beings implementation hasn’t been always so tollerant.

Franckly i would like someone to explain me why Hindouism and Buddhism should be against science.

For the sources :
Matthew 22:21
Mark 12:17
Wording that recognized in the Western civilisation the existence of two separate authorities. That these two powers tried constantly play monopoly is another matter.

If you’re looking for a plot idea for your sci-fi zen book here goes: American Zen monastery survives apocalyptic disaster because it’s out in the boonies. Survivors descend on monastery, which strives to maintain its existence while not betraying its values. Throw in some techno-geeky nerds at the monastery to give it more sci-fi appeal.

And there’s lot’s of different types of dualism. Not all are particularly relevant to Buddhism. Cartesian mind-body dualism is not so interesting, because Buddhism never denied the distinction. Even the Mind-Only school only argued for an epistemic idealism, that is, we can only know our perceptions. The dualism that’s most relevant to Mahayana Buddhism is the dualism of self and other.

Time ago when you plublished some sci-fi book (scantily claded gurls etc) i proposed, you to have the hero being a zen priest that in the end solve the whole problem through some “zen magic” thing. Something between Monty Piton and “animal party”.

I also proposed to make a grid and/or flow (structure) analysis of some books of the same kind in order to identify some successful narrative structure (ask Michel about Star wars structure, Campbel etc) and just dress them with some new names and places. This by the way is what makes the majority of books, movies.

“Also in ï¿½Zombie Bootie Hunters on Spring Break,ï¿½ i would drop the zombie thing, it’s not springy enough i think.

And the rabbit should have a more prominent role, saving grateful bunnies, YES !

That’s it. Saving Playboy* mansion bunnies from a bunch of bible belt zombies, using a stratocaster to smash skulls, or a kyosaku would be even more exotic, saying some “wise sentence” during the action … with G*#*%* roshi as a head zombie rambling about to be the source of the zombie virus, of being the famous faucet from which comes all the zombiehood.

In the end the Brad the rabbit and the bunnies repopulate the earth “sotfly” or “hardly” depending on the audience, on-line viewing has the choice between the two options.

Or you can get the gonzo version were the rabbit just drop by and drops his pants.

* Deserves the capital letter”
—
Kind of Austin Powers parody
—

Movie flow like in “12 monkeys” with interviews in the past (old shit from the ’60s and ’70s you can find on the net — old B movies too), somehow “explaining” nothing but giving this sense of “causality”, with super-rabbit citing some dull, obvious but apparently “deep things”.

Virus due to the fact that people don’t have enough s*x and thus earth aura isn’t strong enough to protect the planet from some crappy radiation from outerspace that modify human DNA … bring in some ’60s japanese* scifi “concept”

Super rabbit could have, just for once, some superpower that saves the bunnies, some mind scrambler, time shift, give a koan to the zombies and let them think it over … who knows what

“Operation save the bunnies” could be the first installement

* M. Werner could (use) some of his japanese b movie culture
—

Movie needs to have depth, not just busting zombies.

You would be the one who gives the origin of it (i don’t watch zombie movie so i think you could be, never saw any that explained it, except “resident evil”).

Radiation get to earth modify DNA, being in a “whatthefuck” special geosomething location the radiations focus on a particularily prone subject (G#@&ï¿½% roshi) scramble and super-boost his EGO neurones and zap definitively all and any of the already few remaining intellectual faculties, during a money making conference, and become a beacon* of the above mentioned radiations that infect the audience.

… to be continued … if you want

* Origin of the “faucet” bull

—-

A cheap video treatement could be like “eraser head” BW D. Linch movie, it saves a lot in light and quality of images and so on, at least for the “explanation” parts of the movie, bunnies are better in colors 🙂

…In Descartes’ conception, the rational soul, an entity distinct from the body and making contact with the body at the pineal gland, might or might not become aware of the differential outflow of animal spirits brought about through the rearrangement of the interfibrillar spaces. When such awareness did occur, however, the result was conscious sensation — body affecting mind. In turn, in voluntary action, the soul might itself initiate a differential outflow of animal spirits. Mind, in other words, could also affect body.”

i think you should write a horror story. one that talks about how human stupidity of unproven schizophrenic things like judgement day and god, hold ppl back from advancing technologically. you could call it “allah”, or “the holy roman empire.”

the cathoic church held my ppl back from advancement for at least a 1000yrs. when you think about how advanced the greeks, and romans were before christ….and how the invention of christ crippled europe….it’s a freakin’ horror story imho…pretty scary.

hell. the greeks had adopted buddhism. given another 500yrs…who knows what they could’ve done with that!!!

and as the for the separation of mind and body…only dead ppl can separate the mind and the body…so, wtf? we need an ancient philosopher to figure that one out? it was ok with the holy roman catholic chruch who burnt ppl in the streets and tortured ppl “possed” by the devil because they we’re trying to figure out water displacement? or medicine?

Obamacare is Obama’s watered-down attempt at badly-needed health care reform. He was too chicken to stand up for the “single payer” or “public option”, which would have been more like existing European or Canadian approaches to healthcare.

Instead, what was engineered was an overly complex compromise with the existing insurance company establishment: in exchange for them giving up their “right” to refuse to sell health insurance policies to people with pre-existing medical conditions, the government has now guaranteed a gigantic cash infusion to these same insurance companies, who are now selling insurance policies at higher prices than ever. These high-priced policies are being paid for with a sliding-scale of government subsidies to individuals whose income is low enough qualify for them.

In my personal case, the government subsidy is large enough that the insurance premium I am now paying is roughly equivalent to what I was paying in 2010 for health insurance, so I am seeing some personal financial benefit from Obamacare (which I am grateful for), but overall the whole scheme is way too much of a $$$ giveaway to the big insurance companies.

And it’s further complicated and compromised by recent Supreme Court rulings that have let Republican-leaning states off the hook for creating their own state-based insurance marketplaces and for expanding the state-based Medicaid programs for poor people (defined as an individual making less than $15,000 a year), which were part of the original concept of Obamacare.

Furthermore, not a lot of thought went into designing workable websites for enrollment in the program. I live in California, which was supposedly has one of the most trouble-free implementations for Obamacare of all the 50 states, yet my experience was far from that: multiple website crashes while attempting to enroll, getting inexplicably locked out of the website after the application process was completed, long wait before my application finally made it over to the my selected insurance company.

And then after that: the insurance companies are currently completely overwhelmed in processing the Obamacare applications that they receive. I’m talking about 1 – 2 hour waiting periods on the telephone, and when you finally reach somebody, they just tell you how overwhelmed they are and beg your for patience while they try to straighten out the mess on their end.

One more thing: not a lot of thought went into intelligently accommodating self-employed free-lancers like myself. The government subsidies are based on projected income for 2014. But they don’t seem to understand that free-lancers can have wildly variable income from month to month, which makes it impossible to accurately project future income.

So, all in all, it’s quite a mess, but with some promise and some improvement of over the current broken system. Poorly implemented and with lots of knee-jerk resistance from folks whose main reason for objecting to it is that it’s an idea comes from a black president. Despite the fact that the whole idea is recycled from Republican proposals of the 1990s.

Maybe you can be a nabi (prophet) to yourself and write a speculative book about the day that begins before you wake up, in that place between awake and asleep, with the fully formed thought that Zen has all been a delusion, that just to live life as it is, without any overlay of labels or misconceptions, is enough? Then as you become fully awake you laugh at how really you couldn’t have conceived of this really without the years of practice, of commitment, to an arbitrary ideal, “tradition” etc.

It was good for me. My brother, who was previously paying $1200 a month for health insurance is now covered for free, with no copay on most things. I’m not a big fan of President Obama, but this is one thing he’s done that really helped.

Time ago when you plublished some sci-fi book (scantily claded gurls etc) i proposed, you to have the hero being a zen priest that in the end solve the whole problem through some “zen magic” thing. Something between Monty Piton and “animal party”.

I also proposed to make a grid and/or flow (structure) analysis of some books of the same kind in order to identify some successful narrative structure (ask Michel about Star wars structure, Campbel etc) and just dress them with some new names and places. This by the way is what makes the majority of books, movies.

“Also in ï¿½Zombie Bootie Hunters on Spring Break,ï¿½ i would drop the zombie thing, it’s not springy enough i think.

And the rabbit should have a more prominent role, saving grateful bunnies, YES !

That’s it. Saving Playboy* mansion bunnies from a bunch of bible belt zombies, using a stratocaster to smash skulls, or a kyosaku would be even more exotic, saying some “wise sentence” during the action … with G*#*%* roshi as a head zombie rambling about to be the source of the zombie virus, of being the famous faucet from which comes all the zombiehood.

In the end the Brad the rabbit and the bunnies repopulate the earth “sotfly” or “hardly” depending on the audience, on-line viewing has the choice between the two options.

Or you can get the gonzo version were the rabbit just drop by and drops his pants.

* Deserves the capital letter”
–
Kind of Austin Powers parody
–

Movie flow like in “12 monkeys” with interviews in the past (old shit from the ’60s and ’70s you can find on the net — old B movies too), somehow “explaining” nothing but giving this sense of “causality”, with super-rabbit citing some dull, obvious but apparently “deep things”.

Virus due to the fact that people don’t have enough s*x and thus earth aura isn’t strong enough to protect the planet from some crappy radiation from outerspace that modify human DNA … bring in some ’60s japanese* scifi “concept”

Super rabbit could have, just for once, some superpower that saves the bunnies, some mind scrambler, time shift, give a koan to the zombies and let them think it over … who knows what

“Operation save the bunnies” could be the first installement

* M. Werner could (use) some of his japanese b movie culture
–

Movie needs to have depth, not just busting zombies.

You would be the one who gives the origin of it (i don’t watch zombie movie so i think you could be, never saw any that explained it, except “resident evil”).

Radiation get to earth modify DNA, being in a “whatthefuck” special geosomething location the radiations focus on a particularily prone subject (G#@&ï¿½% roshi) scramble and super-boost his EGO neurones and zap definitively all and any of the already few remaining intellectual faculties, during a money making conference, and become a beacon* of the above mentioned radiations that infect the audience.

… to be continued … if you want

* Origin of the “faucet” bull

–-

A cheap video treatement could be like “eraser head” BW D. Linch movie, it saves a lot in light and quality of images and so on, at least for the “explanation” parts of the movie, bunnies are better in colors 🙂

When living in a dualistic world, and dealing with dualism, it’s best to use dualistic ideas and methods. Trying to live by non-dual ideas and methods leads to a lot of troubles in a dualistic world. That might explain some of the problems Hindu and Buddhist cultures have had getting hip to the way this world works.

“Remember, when Europe was in its dark ages, Central Asia was very prosperous and extremely advanced.
The Persians had tons of intellectuals after Islam spread to Persia/Iran (same thing). They include: Al Khwarizmi (without who, computers wouldn’t exist), Omar Khayyam, Avicenna, Rhazes, and etc. Before the spread of Islam, the Sassanian Zoroastrians were actually very corrupt ….”

———–

Now let’s drop this crap once and for all.

This is very much islamic-centric because, out there, there were huge civilisations like China and India.
Before the invasions that religion didn’t produce very much, in fact it invaded pre-existing centers of culture of which it usurped knowledge.

Please, don’t use the “the conquered were corrupted” justification … it stinks of cultural racism, as if the conquerors weren’t corrupted as much as the vanquished.

BTW, those same invader raided north of India, plundering, pillaging, murdering and going back to Afghanistan for a while until they decided to actually stay there permanently and live of the labor of it’s inhabitants.

BTW how many theorems of mathematic or geometry have you ever heard bearing the name of those guys?
Laws of physics?
Chemistry?
Medecine?
Electronics?

Why did we need the likes of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Leibnitz and it goes on till now.

Another piece of ¨%$*/# is the astronomical instruments … have a look at this, the much exalted arab astrolabs were just a faint shadow of this Antikythera mechanism
See on wikipedia “Antikythera mechanism”

Lately ask yourself how much of those maths were due to the contact with indian thinking?
Even the much vaunted “arab numbers” were indian numbers!

The guys cited above did indeed something, but it’s been overexagerated, and i think it is some form of culture-centrism to go around boasting that while they did it others were in a lesser advanced state of material advance.
Europe had been ravaged for some hundreds of years by invading Goth, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Burgundians, Alans, Lombards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Suebi, Alemanni, Gepids, Vandals & Huns (let’s not forget Attila) while on the other side they were the only invaders with no one pushing their back and further ravaging everything.

– Setup
A new threat be it whatever pubblic wants from past, present, future. You really don’t need to worry about plausability, aliens, zombies, mad scientists, your great grand son coming back from the future etc

boubi, I did not deny the influence of Hindu and Chinese scholars. Stop being an Islamophobe.

The Sassanian Zoroastrians of Persia/Iran were destroying it by persecuting Manichaeists, Buddhists, and Christians. What part of this don’t you understand? Mani was killed under Bahram II and Buddhist temples were born. There were Zoroastrian extremists too… While the Arabs were originally very vicious, they eventually calmed down and Turkey, Iran, and Arabs all contributed to scientific progress.

Like I’ve said, a Parthian Persian by the name of An Shigao brought Buddhism to China, and Bodhidharma was most likely Persian. The Arabs eradicated Buddhism from Afghanistan which it was big in. The Christians also killed the Pagans of Europe. The Vikings killed pacifist Christians in a monastery. Everyone is discriminating each other, but at least it sometimes opens the door to greater connections and collaboration (e.g., Alexander invading Persepolis and burning the library was evil and even Aristotle didn’t like it, but he also opened the door for Hellnization and it lead to an explosion of intellectual growth).

Shams Tabrizi (Rumi’s teacher) and Rumi were born around that time period too.

This said to justify some greed motivated invasion by the fact that the invaded were “corrupted”, “greedy”, “infidel” whatever the shit is old as historical records.

Every civilisation contributed MORE or less to the advance of science.

But to say the there would be no computers without Al Khwarizmi means exactly nothing, if not wanting to take the merit of something that would have happened anyway in western civilisation. Sorry to say it.

Just a question.

Does the fact that the eastern world was in the 1800 extremely corrupted, still in a technological middle age, with no concept whatsoever of democracy or of human rights would have justified western colonialism?

If the fact that Persians were corrupted justified in your eyes muslim invasion, then the same fact would justify western invasion of the rest of the world.

While the Arabs were originally very vicious, they eventually calmed down and Turkey, Iran, and Arabs all contributed to scientific progress.
———-
Yeah they “calmed down” (ask the black african slaves who were castrated on arrival) because the Turks took over as soon as more or less the year 1000, and took the lead in being “unruly” and after destroying Costantinopole (maybe they be corrupt) had to be stopped at Vienna’s gates in the times of Mozart.

Again, if “calming down” justify invasions, we too we calmed down and contributed to scientific progress.

“contributed to scientific progress”?

Sorry, WE made science, ask any (serious) scientist.

Before material sciences (Math excluded, being a self contained logic) were a kind of numbo jumbo, nobody experimenting the way Galileo started to do.

Outside Europe i don’t remember anyone before Galileo (& Giordano Bruno) questionning the valididy of Aristotiles’ “physics”, for sure not the Avicennas and other muslim sages.

To have chemistry we needed Lavoisier, and still until quantum theory of chemistry nobody knew exactly what was going on down there.

As said in the other post, Avicenna et alia were geniuses, but nowaday science deons’t owe them more than to the indian mathematicians.

By the way the Mayan invented on their the “zero” notation 350 DC, some centuries before the birth of that religion …

Just hope that tomorrow your neighbour won’t find that you’re more corrupt that he is and invades your home.
Killing a number, maiming, enslaving and castrating the remaining and in the end renovating to a new splendor your place, thus contributing to the advancement of the city.

Next time you see any neighbour, just smile and appear santly, who knows …

I made it clear every religion, including Zoroastrianism, has done that.

I said that killing is not good, for example the burning of Persepolis by Alexander wasn’t good, but there is SOMETIMES a reverse side of how it opens more doors for greater collaboration (i.e., Hellenization).

For example, the Mongols actually retained and expanded many cultural elements when invading, even though the act of invading isn’t itself good.

Also, I wasn’t saying Islam is a great religion. I’m not even Muslim.

I’m saying it’s not right to attribute all of modern scientific progress to Christian societies. It seems you’re arguing for this.

I cited several Indian mathematicians and Persian scientists, for example. My point is that we can’t attribute all of scientific progress to Christian societies on the basis of Cartesian dualism or w/e.

Also, are you trying to draw a parallel between me and Khomeini? Khomeini was nuts.

Maybe if UN and CIAA didn’t overthrow the secular, democratic Mossadegh in 1953 and install a puppet regime with the Shah, none of this nonsense would have happened?

Khomeini was an an idiot and didn’t even read stuff like Sa’di, Rumi, Shams Tabrizi, Attar, or whatever. His library was full of fundamentalist crap. The book he wrote was just a bunch of gibberish that only a sick mind could make sense of (e.g., falling in the cracks of an earthquake with a woman and having sex with her is still Haram.. wtf?).

Likening all of Islam to contemporary extremists is what I mean by “Islamophobes”. I’m not going to liken Soto Zen Buddhism to the generals who used Zazen for war, and I’m not going to liken Hinduism to prejudiced Brahman who used it to brain-wash people on a massive scale.

Anyways, you say that all the world contributed to science and then you say science is a Western creation. That’s quite a contradiction there. I agree with the former and not the latter. It’s very Eurocentric.

Sorry your point was that
– citing real historical FACTS
– failing to exalt “the marvels of arab knowledge” as you did
i was deemed nothing less than ISLAMOPHOBIC*.

Which is exactly why this word was created by “dear leader” Khomeyni.

To cast a political correct curse on whoever “dared” to have a critical (meaning analytical) view on whatever correlated to that civilisation.
That means going back to that dark ages that “they” (and their mindless minions) reproach to us.
BTW that same dark ages, that slumber of the mind/reason, has been the reality for the last 1000 (one thousand) years for those finger wagging selfrighteous $%@(#*& (refered to the finger wagging selfrighteous) .

So i believe that as far as mathematics go (quantities and shapes) , we owe a lot more to the Greeks and Indian that to anybody else.
Anybody studied sciences at university? Just think about the the names of theorems, laws and postulates you learned … 😉

BTW an ancient greek calculated the circonference of the earth BC, long before anyone else.

How would you feel if every time someone spoke to non-western people, he would state that “they owe us” microscope, antibiotics, vaccines, anestesia, organ stransplant, knowledge of blood circulation, parasitology, radiography, magnetic ressonance, asepsis, chemiotherapy, brain surgery, emodialysis, cardiac surgery, and the list goes on for a few pages just in the biological department …

AND if the person would dare to say anything he would be declared “westernophobic”.

With the difference that since the end of the inquisition (and we ended it on our own) no one is condemned to death as Rushdie, contrary to what happens in this “islamic revival”, but sorry it seems that saying it is “islamophobic”.

SO thank you very much for taking the care to spread your very own little bit of it one more place.

I want to state once more, the Al Khwarizmi , Omar Khayyam, Avicenna, Rhazes were GENIUSES on their own right. Now ask yourself what made that they stopped there and didn’t developped further.

But have you seen anybody reproaching that what the afore mentionned did what based on Greeks and Indians and that without the likes of Euclydes and indians ther would not have been any Khwarizmi ?

What? some case of Hellenophoby? or Hinduphoby?

———-
* which lately could entail being killed by some fanatic, thank you for this too, kind of shouting “herethic” in a medieval market place !

Every culture and society that has grown tremendously has influenced mankind greatly, such as Indian/Chinese/Persian/European. Deciding which has done the most is ridiculous.

So yeah, you can shut the fuck up with your wet dream for Christianity. Why don’t you watch the film The Seventh Seal? The Christians have done just as many horrific things as Muslims such as dancing around black cats being burned on the stake, drowning “witches”, and so much more. Like I’ve said, during 800 AD – 1200 AD, the dark ages of Europe, Central Asia was actually very good. There is no such thing as a “solid foundation”; everything is always precarious and oscillating, and I have a feeling Putin is trying to shift global power to the East once again (i.e., Iran, China, Vietnam if it pulls out of the Trans Pacific Partnership which is also destroying its wild-life – more terrorism from the West, and etc.)

America has given a lot of propaganda about the USSR. For example, the USSR did allow freedom of religion – they didn’t care what you followed. It seems the propaganda of demonizing Islam has affected you,boubi.

Like I told you, I’m not Muslim or a follower of the Abrahamic Faiths. It simply makes sense to me to judge all the Abrahamic Faiths are one, since they are all practically the same – it is only superficial differences that sets them apart. There’s a reason why Gnostic Christianity, Sufism, and Kaballah mysticism are all very similar.

Just keep sulking and call those who contradict you (bringing arguments) “bigots” and “islamophobics”.

Your business.

Sorry, drop your “big meaning” geopolitics, Putin is no more than a thug who OWNS Russia. He is worth some $75 billion in 2013.

So please …. “he wants to shift”… he just wants to shaft anybody opposing his uncontested control of his turf.

Try to get to the core of things. Things are plain, simple. Do yourself a favor and just try to.

“So yeah, you can shut the fuck up with your wet dream for Christianity.”
You don’t even know, nor understand, what you are talking about.
Actually i don’t give a damn thing about “christianity” … you don’t read, don’t you.
I talk about the West i.e Jefferson, Voltaire, Galileo and all the unknown men and women who fought and risked their lives to free us from the tyranny of some religious dogma, mono, bi or politheists.

Just be plain human beings, with no distinction of color or sex.
I understand that it can be a tit bit difficult to undestand to some people.

Once again, your business.

“the USSR did allow freedom of religion — they didn’t care what you followed”
Yeah, that’s right, and they were “the workers’ paradise” too … the only paradise was for those fat cats of apparatnichiks, among them “dear leader” Putin.

“Why don’t you watch the film The Seventh Seal?”

I already watch Mickey Mouse with some todlers and we are having a lot of fun, thank you.

PS
You weren’t able to give any answer, excepted throwing spittling anathemes …

The only religion that does not have a significant history of oppression is Manichaiesm because it was killed off relatively quickly by the Zoroastrians. It actually spread to China a lot, and there is significant evidence showing Pure Land Buddhism is a variant of Manichaeism mixed with Buddhism.

Comparing Christianity and Islam is like comparing a piece of turd to urine and arguing which has done more damage to the world. They even discriminated amongst themselves.

For example, look at the death of Mansur-al Hallaj:

en.wikip
edia.org/w
iki/Mansu
r_Al-Ha
llaj#Death

(link together)

Or the death of Bruno:

e
n.wikip
edia.org/wik
i/Giord
ano_Bruno

Both were pantheists who went against the contemporary strand of the religion of their time. What I think is good is to make the contemporary religion of a nation less dogmatic and more open to diversity (e.g., imagine if contemporary middle-east let go of their dogmatic interpretation of the Koan and adopted a more open form of Islam like Sufism — such as during Safavid Empire?)

Like I’ve said, boubi, you can shut the fuck up. You’re just a xenophobic asshole who cannot study history without bias. Every culture has influenced the development of science greatly. You can take your eurocentric bullshit, and shove it up your ass. We have a conflict of interests. Let’s just leave at that.

You think Church and state can truly be separated? There’s a reason why right wing movements are generally religious and dogmatic. Find me a Unitarian right winger for example.

But for the good of all creature, mainly those read this blog, i would like to try (i know it won’t sink) to let you out of the woods of some cultural relativism of yours, you know to offer you a glimpse out of whatever is possessing you.

Just keeping with the turp and piss of yours, just try to make a comparison between pope Francis and Khomeini or any other of his coleagues.